Prince’s Trust Reports Despair Amongst The Young And Thinks Workfare Is The Answer

Top pop star Tom Jones was famously a benefit scrounger. Today he’d have been sent on workfare.

The Prince’s Trust released a report over Christmas about the impact of youth unemployment which revealed that a third of young unemployed people have had suicidal thoughts.

The charity’s report makes grim reading with almost one in five long term unemployed young people reporting that they feel they have nothing to live for. The results of this survey paint a picture a world away from the usual stereotype of the young unemployed and reveal a generation growing up without hope.

The tragedy is that young unemployed people have historically been one of the UK’s greatest cultural assets. Enduring institutions such as Glastonbury Festival, or even The Beatles, would never have emerged without young unemployed people. Now they are smeared as scroungers, accused of being lazy or workshy, despite the lack of jobs. A social security system that at least allowed young people to study, genuinely volunteer or develop their creativity whilst they were unemployed has disappeared. Instead all that is on offer are endless workfare schemes, or shoddy Apprenticeships that are little more than a chance for companies to dodge minimum wage laws.

Any attempt by young people to take control of their own lives – by doing a course, arranging a volunteer placement, or developing a new skill, is quite likely to end in a benefit sanction. Instead Iain Duncan Smith wants people working for free, or endlessly sending out mass applications to jobs which often don’t even exist posted on the farcical Government job-seeking website Universal Jobmatch.

Astonishingly, The Prince’s Trust seem to think that more of the same is the answer to the bleak future the young face. As pointed out by Boycott Workfare, the charity has recently launched a huge workfare scheme, aiming to provide 100,000 unpaid work placements at major British companies including arms company BAe and workfare veterans Tesco. Tesco in particular will be pleased. In 2012 the company were forced to pull out of the Government’s Work Experience scheme after a huge protest from their customers over their use of unpaid workers. Now, with the connivance of a charity, they can ethically spin their use of workfare, pretending that they are simply helping all the depressed young people the Prince’s Trust identified in their report over Christmas.

An organisation fronted by the future King of England could be using their financial and political influence to encourage employers to give young people proper jobs, on a living wage. Instead they seem happy to join in with this Government’s obsession with making young people work for free on schemes that will only cut the number of paid positions available.

The Prince’s Trust will no doubt plead that these schemes are voluntary and not part of a Jobcentre programme – possibly rendering them illegal under minimum wage laws. But unpaid work for profit making companies is still unacceptable. Greedy bosses shouldn’t be in business if they can’t afford to pay wages. For a charity which claims to help young people, The Prince’s Trust support for this exploitation is obscene.

These workfare schemes will not be voluntary once Jobcentres get hold of them. George Osborne has already announced that unemployed people under 22 who refuse unpaid work experience will be forced to carry out 780 hours ‘community work’ instead. The Prince’s Trust may claim that their scheme is not forced labour, but this Government has very different ideas.

There are some ppl who really do think that any kind of “work activity” gives those who have no work a feeling of some self worth. They are allowed to feel important again, and that they have indeed some degree of meaning in their lives.
I did hear some New England professor on Radio 4, “The Moral Maze” the other year, tell us all it didn’t matter to the unemployed person whether he was getting paid for work, so long as he was doing something and feeling he mattered!”
That is true to a point. The point only being so long as pleb feels his bit of work will lead to real work with real pay…..When pleb understands that is not going to happen, his little bit of feeling important fast disappears and resentment and anger take over.
The prince’s trust has obviously fallen for the professor’s myth. May be the boss heard the same programme, but has chosen not to hear the outrage of the other members of the show’s panel.
What the prince’s trust fail to grasp is that a great part of the depression for ppl who are out of work, is the having no money part.
It is this more than the lack of work that is the real problem…..and no amount of workfare is going to change that.
Indeed, it makes it all the worse. As many have already observed, how can folks who have no money to feed themselves, buy essential clothing, etc, heat homes, and so on, go out to work, especially knowing that other folks they work beside are getting paid real money and they are not? And how can they actually get to work with no money for transport? How then are they supposed to feel important and that they matter?

It is all very well for highly paid professors in colleges, and certain politicians to thinks all it takes is to give ppl a bit of work. These classes removed from the real world never have to worry about money. For them work is merely an occupation, i.e that they are not bored during the day doing nothing! They translate their own personal desires not to be “idle” to the wider world, as for them, finance is relatively unimportant.
But for most other people, work is all about earning money to live. Because for most other people that is the only way they are going to get any. as Social Security certainly isn’t going to cover most ppl’s cost of living anywhere. Being unoccupied, and bored during the day is the very least of their problems.
And if ppl are not able to get the money they need, they will feel useless and depressed..
Most of the depressed young ppl are depressed not merely because they are not “occupied”, but they have nothing. No money, no hope of getting a real job, and today, being criminalized by big society and the REGIME, for that. And the constant threat of sanctions now makes their depression and hopelessness all the greater.

It is more than unfortunate the princes trust group have highlighted the depression side of things, but fails to see the real causes, or chooses not to see.

the infrastructure for creating mass employment in the uk has been wiped out…many of the few new jobs that there are, are in trying to convince the masses this is not the case….in work poverty is soaring..the sex pistols have been proven correct….no future, for the masses, no escape from the poverty trap…there simply are no jobs out there for the masses, no more…

Judging by what George Osborne said today I expect to be one of the older long term unemployed to be collecting litter sometime after april to earn my jobseekers allowance. I guess it’s important for the government to pressure certain groups of the unemployed so that it will cause less reaction. Then the rest of the unemployed will be grateful they are not being forced to work for nothing and will do nothing. We then will have the unemployed who are forced to work for benefits wishing it on the ones who stood by and did nothing to try and stop it. A split between the unemployed will only lead to acceptance so it is important to speak as one voice and condemn any kind of workfare. If we say nothing then it won’t just be the young who will face workfare. Eventually every person who becomes unemployed might be put on workfare from day one.

very 1984 … winston smith was reduced to living amongst others who were outwardly in a situation externally similar to his own, yet completely isolated from them at the same time. He could only follow orders and was never able to find common cause with others around him – ’til he met julia (& that didn’t end well …)

Sleeping on rush mats or in sleeping bags doing 18 hour shifts in factories where owners can pay you less than NMW because you sleep on premises ie employer provides ‘ accomadation ” ..this happens in China..

Funny you should mention China. Cameron’s trip to China the other week with a horde of business representatives was a sickening bit of grovelling designed to a) apologise for playing host to the Dalai Lama and b) to appeal to them to be a major investor state in the UK. And this current craze for making people work for next to nothing, reducing working pay and conditions to Chinese levels will certainly do the trick. Before we know it this normalisation of near-slavery will be standard and the sleeping British public will, once again, have no-one but themselves to blame, their Outrage Impulse having been euthanised long ago by passive, self-interested consumerism…

You are quite right Kittycat,there was a Scottish comedian( can’t remember his name) I saw on BBC TV recently ridiculing the notion about workfare and self worth.He was pretending to be on the phone talking to the electric company saying “I can’t pay because I have got no money but I have got plenty of self esteem,can I pay with that please”The whole audience seemed to be in agreement because they were all laughing too. For certain people in their gilded ivory towers to continually try to push this rubbish is pathetic,for a so called charity “The Prince’s Truss” to push it is sickening.

Ah the self worth of work ..the work ethic. Did anyone read that graun article on the respectability of work ..where the journo did a stint of waitressing at top restaurant where they got then to burn their fingers so that would not feel anything when carrying hot plates…

I was on a compulsory placement for 5 months when I was at school. I got sent to work at an old people’s home. They made me go to a huge industrial pressure cooker and take out really hot dishes. I was getting burned every day. They refused me a towel to hold things, gloves etc. They refused to allow me to show I was in pain. They refused to treat me, let me treat myself, or go to hospital/doctor. They didn’t even record it as the law says you must record industrial injury. And they blamed me for complaining about it and told me to shut up. They were the Red Cross. (owners of the home)
Of course I still had to cut up food, feed and dress people, etc. and treat any of their minor injuries. AND do school and homework, writing everything etc.

Anyone I told about it, the school etc., said I was lying. From the account of the waitress above, that looks like vindication. I wasn’t lying, and wasn’t the only one this has happened to.

I think the comedian as Kevin Bridges, and yes he was spot on with his observations. The whole “work ethic” and “self esteem from work” is a croc, peddled by the wealthy to justify paying crap wages (or no wages at all) to their staff.

kb is in or still close to the age group now expected to not leave home unless a job is somehow ‘guaranteed’ – no longer thought to deserve such luxuries as housing benefit if this isn’t them/they can’t live in a big happy family home for any reason. It would be “unfair” (“..to hardworking …” blah blah … “…doing the right thing” …blah blah…).

@kitty taken to extremes would suggest that by not working you have no rights eg voting ..only ” strivers ” should have any say…you are not allowed to even be a person as you do not contribute .this is stupid as crafty tax avoiders certainly have a say in running of affairs…

bobchewie: watch Starship Troopers. ‘Service Guarantees Citizenship’. The world is run by white anglo types who are ‘federal’ and based everywhere. Young people (of increasingly low ages as the bugs kill the older ones, necessitating endless recruitment) are ‘encouraged’ to join the military. The brutal training can kill you, and then after training your life expectancy fighting the bugs is crap. they sometimes let people in with a cyber leg or arm who were wounded, in action; but new entrants can’t be disabled even if they wanted to serve. it has compulsory mixed sex communal showers and changing rooms. (i think at some levels it’s a satire on the military)
Every human is classified as Citizen or Civilian. You are seen as a drain on society, selfish, non-contributing if you’re a Civilian (all disabled people are automatically Civilians, unless they are an ex soldier who acquired a disability like amputation).. Civilians can’t vote. Only citizens, who have to have been in the military, can vote. If they are citizens it is easier for them to get the government licence to marry or reproduce
(I suppose you have to be straight too in this world). Civilians can apply for the licences but it’s much harder, there are restrictions on travel/education/housing/employment for civilians. Voting, once you’ve got it, is crap/useless. Nothing really changes and you are only conned into thinking you can change things. (every 4 seconds the news yells ‘would you like to know more?’ and invites you to click on the screen. It’s all soundbites with nothing in depth or at length, or alternative viewpoints.) People are told to all be the same. If anyone questions the government, or their leaders if they’re in the military, they are stripped to the waist and flogged in public. Only soldiers/ex-soldiers get proper medical care and cybernetic arms/legs. Civilians are restricted in where they can travel to, where they can live, what they can own or buy, the amount they can earn, what colleges/universities their kids attend, etc. The uniforms of lots of the branches of the military, look clearly fascist/nazi, so it’s clear that they (schools/colleges/universities) leave out the study of anything in history between 1933 and 1945.

“The mobile infantry made me the man I am today.”
-member of non-active-duty personnel, in charge of checking the commissions of new recruits and sending them off to their different space ships or assignments/divisions. He has been fighting the bugs. He has one arm (cyber) and no legs, and is in a wheelchair.

I see Osbourne is offering more austerity for us all arent we lucky..and then Mr 900 houses threatening to evict clamants which results in homeless ppl being shunted from pillar to post with no address to even apply for jobs even if such things existed ..
The whole workfare thing is a scam..
The strivers vs skivers is bollocks
If you are a claimant on workfare then since you are working you are a striver..as you are counted as employed but since you are a claimant you are a skiver..
Its totally stupid …

Oh lord fraud finally admits benefit fraud is actually low..why the fuck couldn’t they have said that ages ago ? The ppl who took their own lives because of that rhetoric are not coming back…thats the fucking tragedy and it neednt have happened ..

Not strictly true. But I get the point..some people who made their name were working albeit in shit jobs..I used to work in entertainments biz ..and because they were in that business were able to get noticed more easily ..in fact if you check previous professions of entertainers some of their previous jobs were quite strange ..

The acting profession was always known for its periods of ” resting “..ie unemployment..I used to see ppl who were on the television in tv series signing on at the labour exchange..

Thats if you think harry potter is any good..its certainly become a marketable commodity..the Americans think we live in harry potter land ..anything that looks olde worlde eg houses of parliament looks like Hogwarts ..mind you wizards conjuring up spells would be a way of describing govt connivances..not so much conjuring more slight of hand..

@bob, i don’t think he’s as good as Billy Connelly/?olly but at least he’s given people like (thingumy who played him & the other two what starred with him) a leg up in their chosen careers and brought joy to countless millions & to jk rowling in the process. It’s also alleged that some people in the US of A also think we live still live in a kind of Downtown Abbeyland if not Harrypotterland … at least that’s a bit nearer the mark.

if you carefully read all 7 books you will see attacks on the ‘muggle’ world (in real life) and government, hierarchies, propaganda, the stifling of independent thought. Dolores Umbridge is a sort of quasi-thatcher.

there are loads of tiny subplots like the one about the house elves. Hermione finds out they, even in the ‘good’ wizarding community, are all slaves. The wizards, good and bad, want servile and creeping elves at the bottom of their society. The later ‘good’ (Umbridge’s lot, actually bad) and then bad (under Voldemort’s rule) wizards add to that. Below elves, they want: muggles, squibs (non-magic people with no magical powers, born into magical families), muggle-borns (vice versa), half-bloods, halfbreeds and nonhumans (centaurs, giant spiders, thinking trees, giants, trolls, everyone else); as a serf population who can be wiped out or enslaved.

Says a lot, if you read between the lines, about immigration and racism.

(I’ve just seen the films, had previously only seen first 3 or 4, and think the books are much better)

“… carefully read all 7 …” carefully read … there are 7 of them already? No wonder JK’s given up ordering just one coffee & staying put all day to write (aka Samuel Beckett & friend with the one pot of tea and several additional pots of water). I have tried reading a HP story but it’s like trying to read JK’s other (earlier) series for me – the ones written when she was still calling herself JR.Tolkien – full of complexities & witty/clever (but in that case the films proably are better) … The subplotesque has helped a lot but still it’s going to be an uphill struggle. i will ask the jobcentre for some time off & see if it can be included as 7 steps.

i do know at least 2 family members (they are my relatives) who are/and were very serious about HP – but they also went off to see Star Wars & only left a note on the door for me so things have been difficult since then.

… that’s maybe not the strongest defence that could be mounted against workfare but probably it’s a bit subjective. Would Oliver Twist have been written had Dickens Snr. never been sent to debtors’ prison & the young Charles D. not been sent to work in a factory? – not to want to make the coalition’s case for them that a return to debtors’ gaols/child labour is what’s required for the wider benefit of society. Today they seem to have it in for young people in general, never mind struggling writers/single parents.

How will they ever feel good about themselves when they know they are not even worth a paying wage.. this will send them into more depression, they have never experienced what its like on the dole, or the treatment..

If they can send you off to MWA and Workfare they can allow you to study full time when looking for work, bunch of twats they are, they dont give a shit about the future of young unemployed people given their actions, it is like they want us to not succeed and its been designed this way.

I remember watching IDS trying to defend MWA by saying it helps young people gain experience whilst claiming benefit. Something they were (according to IDS) previously unable to do.
What IDS didn’t explain (or even mention) is that EVERYONE claiming JSA/ESA whatever is referred tp MWA regardless of age/experience/health or any kind of suitability testing.
It seems to me that we’re being shipped off to the (work) camps, for a new final solution.

if anyone has just arrived from another planet, IDS is a cunt by the way (everyone else already knows that).

On my workfare I learned: How to be injured at work, and for them to cover it up.
On my workfare I experienced:
Having to listen to the rest of my ‘co-workers’ on workfare talk endlessly, all day every day, on the illuminating topics of:
Prison, stabbing people, drink, drugs
Their devastating contempt for all women; their wifebeating and adultery/cheating with current and previous partners; their plot to gang rape a lesbian who worked at the farm fulltime (member of staff).
Their hatred for disabled people, Jews, Muslims, Romany people, immigrants, black people, Asians, mixed race people, anyone not white British.
Their wish to beat or stab foreign or black/brown people.
Their searing homophobia.

Skill set gained: Staying silent and not letting them find out I’m gay.
Increased revulsion towards workfare in general and IDS in particular.
(They said to write ‘learned how to dig a hole’, but strangely enough I knew how to do that already)

I just don’t get it, how can a country’s economy recover on the basis of people working for nothing? Surely if more people have money to spend in their purses, that’s the perfect solution to sustainable economic recovery!

This is so very wrong – has this actually been run past Prince Charles? Or indeed any royal?

All this is going to do is push youngsters deeper and deeper into despair, lose jobs to those who are paid already to make way for these new slaves, and to make these youngsters think that they are worth nothing.

I hope that someone out there can write a decent letter so that many thousands of us can ask the Prince to stop this and to point out that this IS slavery. How is anyone who is under 25 going to get on in this world whilst stocking shelves? It’s a damned disgrace!

If anyone is good with writing letters could you please write one and then share it with me, bloggers, facebook and twitter so that we can all send it to the Prince – or start a petition?

Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog and commented:
This is another excellent article from Mr Void, of which I wouldn’t change a word. As for workfare apparently lifting the spirits of the young unemployed, that can only come from someone, who has never, ever, seen themselves stuck in a dead-end job with no hope of something better. Most people have had the experience of working in rotten jobs when they started work. Indeed, it’s actually part of your career if you’re Japanese, where they will stick outside for a year, either ironing bank notes or polishing the company brass plaque, all day, every day, for a year. Then they promote you to a decent job. In Britain, most people at one time had the opportunity to change jobs, and find something a bit better. These opportunities have been steadily cut down almost to non-existence over the last few decades. It was bad enough when Maggie’s and Major’s governments introduced short-term contracts. These were intended to make the labour market more flexible by getting rid of the idea that you could have a job for life, as the Tories joyously trumpeted. The result was chronic insecurity among the workforce, and fears of where you would be in the six months or a year. You were, however, at least paid a wage. Now with the introduction of workfare, the young unemployed will not even have that. And, as Mr Void has pointed out, the voluntary jobs that they would like to do, the learning opportunity they would like to take up, and which would actually benefit them, will be sanctioned because someone in the DWP or whichever private company is given the government contract to act like it, decides that it does not suit the government’s or big business’ plans to have a low paid, compliant and fearful workforce. If you wish to see for yourself what the results of this will be, I suggest you take a leaf from art history, and look at ‘Barge Haulers of the Volga’ by the great Russian artist, Repin. This shows a group of serfs, hauling the barges up and down the Volga river in 19th century Russia. They are ragged with dead eyes and beaten, hopeless expressions. They are trapped in hopeless, degrading work, with no end in sight. And as serfs, they are the property of their masters, just as Cameron views the wages slaves in 21st century Britain.

I think this year we all should the british public who is in utter dissagreement with workfare should pressurise this shabby goverment that we the british public will not tolorate greedy employers who are benefiting from this scheme from the goverment.lol mmmmmmm why pay when i can get labour for nowt is the attitude.

I don’t really see what the problem is. Having somewhere to go, something to do, some company, what’s wrong with that? Having a routine and some social contact with others is a good thing, surely, and much better than watching daytime television or sleeping until 2.00 p.m. Getting people out of the house and giving them something physically and mentally to occupy themselves with, well, that must have some positive effect I would say. The people affected would only be lounging about anyway and the country might as well get something back for keeping them alive. As for not being paid a wage, well, they’re being paid benefits aren’t they? Of course they are!

Every workfare post makes it harder for a genuine job to be created, and people on workfare will be more likely to work badly whenever they can get away with it. Also, noone should be made to work as a slave ( with the possible exception of certain convicted criminals.) It also means genuine workers can be replaced by workfare slaves with few or no rights.

duranty
work is not social enterprise…one only works to seek rewards of pay, the activity of gathering of resources so that one can have reliable supply vitals for life and living, therefore vitality. it is the gathering of sufficient vital, vitality giving resources that brings vitality and nothing else, work with decent rewards bring vitality, work that drains resources, also drains vitality…the £71/wk jsa benefits are paid to provide a subsistence income for ACTIVELY SEEKING WORK there are no extra new jobs, MWA is on top of actively seeking work….you have a mind please use it, do not respond to the stereotypes set by powerful propagandists, who have power over our vitals….

yes thanks for that. There really is nothing to do but “lounge” (have i got that right?) all day. Usually accompanied by counting and recounting and trying to mentally calibrate exactly the best way to make JSA and associated tax credits support a growing child and a fully grown adult/pay the bills and allow travel to and from school/job centre/work programme provider/library etc etc…. etc, (it’s winter – so even more relaxing/less to think about/do).

… it would be so lovely to be able to not only do this, but also to be back to going to & from a (full time?) workplace again – only this time not for an actual salary at the week’s or month’s end – just for the satisfaction of having some actual workmates. There really is no need to have any extra money when at work (no need to ever go with said workmates to any extra-curricular event/activity) – no need to spend any money whatsoever on trying to look halfway presentable at work – no-one minds do they? (hair cuts – doesn’t matter/work clothes/shoes (stockings even! ok, tights) – ditto can just turn up in any old thing – after all who spends any money on a working wardrobe?) ok, people in paid work often tend to, but they have a salary and are not to be found “lounging” if i remember rightly. It would mean an end to all that lounging/counting pennies and focussing on how to make them do the impossible, & the looking for/sending of applications for (paid) jobs … [drifts off into feelings of increased self-worth at the very thought], Things really are looking up if this is what’s on the horizon for us all … when do we start?

oh, almost forgot anid all the excitement there – what’s wrong with it is that it’s extremely patronising and takes no account of the reality of benefits in their current form (which is to say they are decreasing fast in real terms) nor of the conditionality attached to continuing to receive them – nor of the reasons why the vast majority of people go out to work/what motivates them & etc.

I want to work in a suitable job I can do reasonably well. The minimum wage would be OK! I only want somewhere to go if I can earn a wage! As for benefits £71 per week, I struggle each week and have to borrow from relatives! On workfare I would still be short of money but I would be working all week for someone on loads more than the minimum wage which I would be well short of on workfare! I always get up at 7.00am which is reasonable without a job, I dont watch daytime TV either!
As for company I happen to prefer my own company always have done. Nobody should have the right to tell someone whether they should like company or not, however if a proper job was offered I would be willing to work well with colleagues in order to make the employer profitable and in turn earn a decent living for myself. I would sacrifice my loner personality
for a working wage!! When men and women are in a group all they talk about is how men are ugly brainless idiots, who needs it !
BUT FOR A PROPER JOB I WOULD PUT UP WITH IT! give and take I say!,
Workfare is all take from the rich! I don’t mind people supporting workfare
you are entitled to your opinion but I hate folk trying to sell it on the back of SELF ESTEEM OR COMPANY! Work for a wage that’s all people should be
obliged to do!

The professor who believes in folks being happy to work for nothing and those like him, seem to be approaching it all from an almost spiritual angle. Idleness is bad for both soul and body, etc. People need to do something. They don’t care so much for workfare as for work !
The REGIME, and its backers, (big business) don’t have such high moral concerns.
It is quite evident, it is all about punishment for being poor. Most of the REGIME absolutely hate any concept of welfare. They want its complete abolition.
Big business is of course all for this too as it gives them extra staff at no cost. And many of the charities have now joined up. And only joined up because they have been handsomely bribed.
And that’s the part many other people do not know about.
The readers of tabloids think the workfare and work programme schemes are saving money.
Essential and useful work being done for welfare payments. ppl get some work experience while community get work done. That’s what they are all lead to think.
They would be taken aback to learn these schemes are costing billions every year. That those behind the counter or backroom in charity stores are getting nothing while the charity gets 600 a month.
So the person is costing more than their own social security cost. That Poundland and all the rest of them will also be getting these payments.
If the REGIME wants to cut the welfare bill by several billion, it could do so at a stroke, by getting rid of these things. But that would mean going back to a more humane system…..and the REGIME of NEW NAZIS wouldn’t want that.

yes what a great idea, put the young into instant slavery, If there is a job for them to do then is certainly a wage that should be paid to them. But NO let us force young people to work for free while the company makes more profits for their top bosses & shareholders. what a joke of a story!!!

give the young real jobs and apprenticeships with real wages,, fuck of with this work ethic shite ,, work = money, i dont go 2 work for a warm cosy feeling inside its for money,,no one should have to work for nothing

Having been unable to find employment for just over a year I have now been referred to the work program, I am very sceptical about it for many reasons not least the fact that I am now 59 years old and I truly feel my age is an issue with potential employers. In that time I have only been granted 2 interviews in over 900 job applications. I am a realist and current circumstances lead me to believe my working life as I knew it, is now over. Who will invest in me at this stage?

I would expect no better from any organisation linked to royalty. This country is morally bankrupt from top to bottom, from our supposed betters in he Royal family and the dregs of humanity in the House of Commons downwards.

Here’s my own perspective.
I am one of those suicidally depressed young people the Prince’s Trust is banging on about, which is more due to genetics and epigenetics than anything else to be entirely honest.
Making me work without pay or lose the benefits I need to survive could quite easily push me over the edge, as I’d see little reason or purpose in it and feel punished by an exploitative system. I’d bet many others would feel the same.

This is for the angry little Englanders who gloat when they see the Tories attack poor people and unemployed people and are going to force them to work for nothing: be careful what you wish for!!! When companies realise they can get free labour, 30 hours per week, from lots of unemployed people, they may start thinking “hmm, we can sack a load of people here, and get FREE labour in exchange.” YOU selfish people may LOSE YOUR JOBS and then find that someone else is doing it FOR NOTHING!!! Well that’s what you want isn’t it? Idle people working for their benefits!!!??? YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!! injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

And another thing: If charities are backing this workfare, then they have lost and credibility they may have had, and lack any moral compass whatsoever. But, hey, as long as it’s only poor Working class people feeling suicidal and having no future, who cares, as long as the precious Middle class folk and the rich are well provided and cared for, well all’s well hey?!

Another great post, Johnny. You make a good point about the unemployed having been one of this country’s greatest cultural assets. As I’ve said for years to anyone who’d listen (and as ex-Damned drummer Rat Scabies said on RT’s show Going Underground the other week), without the dole this country would never have had a music scene, certainly not one that was the envy of the world and made this country countless billions of pounds… All those bands that Cameron claims to like would never have existed!

Back when I was in the system and claiming Jobseeker’s, my depression was largely hindered by the “must do a course or voluntary work” mindset that Labour introduced, since you always got landed on course with guys and girls who didn’t want to be there and just jumped through the hoops – which always made the courses much harder to deal with. I can only imagine what this system must make the poor claimants feel like – working for no wages – do they get given bus fare (around here, you’d be expected to pay up to £10 per day on travel – how is someone on £75 going to afford that and still eat and heat their homes?) or extra lunch money (I can eat lunch at home for around 50p a day easily, but buying lunch is much more expensive if you’re away from home) to compensate? Do they get a grant to help them buy new clothing to meet the company’s dress code (if you got a job, you’d normally borrow from family or friends to buy them and pay them back out of your wages – but without wages, that’s not possible).

If IDS would take up the challenge and live off normal single-person benefits for 3 months, without any external help and with only what a normal claimant would be reasonably expected to have, we could all believe what he says about the system… until that day, however.

The thing that upsets me are the comments from those who’ve never been down that road – who’s parents have always had the money to help them out or they’ve had a good enough start to always have steady money flowing in… perhaps if those people had to walk a mile in these claimants’ shoes, they’d be less quick to judge and more quick to lend a hand or put up with a pint less each week.

I am retired now and was lucky to have worked for most of my 50 yrs but I feel sorry for the low paid and people on benefit today,one thing I would not have done is work for fuk all for anybody,and I would never give fuk all to another charity and let prince Charles get his own lazy fukin family to work on his farms for fuk all,bring on the riots its the only way we are going change this country for the better

………..extract taken from staff bulletin to DWP internal departments on 7th Nov 2013, as highlighted in Daily Mirror;

evidence to be obtained before a decision can be made on balance of probabilities.
12. In exceptional circumstances, should all sources of evidence be exhausted and it is still not
possible to reach a decision on balance of probabilities, the designated person may seek
advice from ATOS using the DBD 385 via the medical evidence wizard.
………………………………………………………………………………

…………..they are saying, the use of ATOS material in making a decision on a disabled persons claim, must only be used if every other avenue has been thoroughly exhausted…………….

A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO ATOS WERE HERALDED BY THE DWP AS THE MOST HIGHLY TRAINED FIRE BREATHING DRAGONS OF THE HEALTHCARE WORLD.

TODAY THEY ARE NOT EVEN ON THE BACK BURNER……

NAMED AND SHAMED AS THE CHARLATANS THAT THEY REALLY ARE,
“THE PRODUCT OF A STATE ENLISTED, DISABILITY DENIAL MACHINE THAT HOLD NO CREDIBILITY WHATSOEVER, A SHAM IN EVERY RESPECT”

…………a ruthless organisation that has brought about deaths in our community, sponsored by the DWP in collusion with another government department, Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service,

CAPITA HEALTHCARE, THE NAME IS A COMPLETE OXYMORON, A WORD THAT SEEMS TO CHALLENGE IT’S OWN MEANING………….

SOMETHING ON THE LINES OF, LIVING DEAD OR GROUND PILOT………..

CAPITA HAVE NO CARE ABOUT THE HEALTH OF DISABLED WHATSOEVER, THEY ARE YET ANOTHER COG IN THE DEPARTMENT OF WORKS AND PENSIONS, DISABILITY DENIAL MACHINE…..

IT’S RATHER LIKE HAVING AN SS STORMTROOPER WELCOMING YOU TO TAKE A RELAXING, FRAGRANT SHOWER,

“YOU KNOW THE OUTCOME BEFORE YOU EVER SET FOOT INSIDE”

………AND WHY ALL THE DRIVEL BEFOREHAND, “YOU ARE INVITED TO APPLY FOR PERSONAL INDEPENDENCE PAYMENT, PIP”………

ARE YOU FUCK INVITED!!!

THEY HAVE STOLEN YOUR EXISTING BENEFITS AND LEFT YOU WITH NO OTHER OPTION TO SURVIVE, LIKE LEADING YOU INTO A CATTLE TRUCK DESTINED FOR AUSCHWITZ WITH A PISTOL PRESSED FIRMLY INTO YOUR TEMPLE…..

WORKING TO DWP TARGETS IS WHAT THE GAME IS ALL ABOUT, COUPLE THAT WITH AN EX BED PAN CLEANER WITH A GLOSSY CERTIFICATE THAT IS NOT RECOGNISED EVEN IN WILLY WONKA’S CHOCOLATE FACTORY, YOU HAVE A RECIPE FOR DISASTER!!!

WHERE ARE ALL THE CITIZENS THAT HAVE BEEN DENIED THEIR ONLY MEANS OF SURVIVAL, YES I MEAN THOSE WHO HAVE NOT ALREADY DIED?

THEY ARE LOST IN THE SYSTEM, THE SYSTEM THAT SYSTEMATICALLY ENDS THE LIVES OF THE POOREST AND WEAKEST………

CAPITA, ATOS, WHOEVER YOU MIGHT CALL UPON, ARE ALL SINGING FROM THE “SAME SONGSHEET” TO THE TUNE OF DISABILITY DENIAL U.K.

WHEREVER YOU HAVE PLAN YOU NEED A MOTIVE, SO LETS CALL THE PLAN;

“THE QUEEN ELIZABETH II DISABILITY EXTERMINATION PACKAGE”

YOU, MY DEAR, WORRY ABOUT YOUR CRUMBLING 240 BEDROOM PALACE AND WHERE YOUR NEXT VENISON IS COMING FROM, AND I WILL CONTINUE TO HIGHLIGHT THE DEATH TOLL OF YOUR WARPED WELFARE BLESSINGS…

We are just a bunch of dumbass peasants who haven’t the organisational intellegence to take mass, violent action against the ruling rich elitist soulless people who are trying to make us the scapegoats for their own banking elitists who are really responsible for screwing things up. They only have so many police, soldiers and guns.

There is talk about suicide by we peasants and some of us actually do it as we are often unwell, both psychologically and physically. Former pilots (like me) may consider suicide by flying out over the north sea and quietly leaving this shit-pile nation in a fast, steep dive. But I wonder what would happen as that pilot flew over 10 Downing Street and realised that he/she was piloting a political statement full of petrol that could not be interdicted once a steep dive was begun. It would be indefenceable (in more than one way probably). Quick and satisfying way to die though. ;)

This scenario happened in 2012 in Texas when a pilot flew a Piper Pa28 into his local tax office after feeling they were vamping him to death. Sadly two people plus the pilot died and I doubt the workers were responsible for the oppressive actions of the state. They were probably peasants just like us. My experience is that small town jobcentre staff are nice people who are pressured by the rules. Of course, the nazi death-camp guards also put up a failed defense of ‘just following orders’. People have to stand up and be counted when the nazis get into power.

My fear would be that such violent actions by the poorest, lost souls in this, our souless nation, would invoke a new and oppressive police state in the way it did in the USA after 9/11. It would be a mistake to give these nazi governing elite an excuse to bring in oppressive laws that take away what little freedom we have.

Even in the French revolution where the masses rose up and slaughtered the give-a-shit rich, ruling elite it went really bad for everyone afterward. Because there is always someone who wants to be the new, oppressive, ruling elite.

So the problem is us. Humans. And there is no way out.

In my case I had to give up my flat and sign off to avoid mandatory slave labour. I was close to retirement but the bastards in the DWP changed the rules and now I am far from retirement and financial safety. I paid in a lifetime for the state pension and have been ripped off of 6 years’ payments which were not ‘benefits’ but my financial rights.

The answer is crime I suspect. I never learned how to be a criminal when I was young but I could morally justify stealing from those slaver stores like Poundland or Asda. The worst is a sentence of Community Work (which we are being sentenced to just for being out of work anyway, or prison, where you don’t have to pay for board and food. They can’t imprison all of us.

It may be preferable to choose death than to be a DWP slave. After all, we are all going to die someday anyway. But I am no longer young and this fight is for the young who are being set up for oppression.

Then again, I am depressed and so my views may be badly off course. ;)

Sorry to hear how it is with you.
I am glad you see its not such a good idea of trying to slam a plane into Govt offices, etc.
As you say, it tends to be the hapless peasant workers who get mowed down, while the REGIME is usually well protected.
It is very sad, tho, such thoughts have to be seriously considered by ppl in such situations as yourself.
Have a pal who was due to “retire” after working since leaving school.
He missed out on pensioner credits by a mere 3 months. Now he has to tramp off to library every 3 days for jobsearch and all the rest of it. He aint’ happy…..
But that actually was a new rule brought in by Gordon Brown, so even before the REGIME took control, ppl had much to loose.
Have you been to any advice places?
I do know the feeling, but try not to let them win.
All the best…Gordo.

When I was signing on I witnessed the levels of stress and over-work the jobcentre employees are currently under. One kindly lady went ballistic at a colleague telling him to stop putting people on workfare as it was overloading the system and her personal workload. She was red-faced and looked like a heart-attack in the making. She was taken away from the public area to help her calm down.

The person I was signing on with was seeing 60 percent more ‘clients’ per day than the official diary had spaces for (which allocates 10 minutes minimum to each person). She was keeping an unofficial daily diary on a small piece of post-it paper and everyone there was doing the same.

These employees are victims of these never ending new oppressive rules as much as are the unemployed who these rules are aimed at vicimising. The DWP (with pressure from the government) are apparently attempting to put pressure onto the unemployed for force them to sign off.

After you are unemployed for 6 months you are placed on a help-into-work type sheme. When you finish this 2 year mandatory work sheme which uses third party businesses to ‘help’ unemployed into work (not a workfare scheme but more a taylored system to help you with C.V.s, qualitifications, job searching, etc) you are expected to sign on EVERY DAY for six weeks. This is not useful as it places heavy pressure on jobcentre staff and a five or ten minute, daily meeting cannot in any way help you find a job.

IMHO – IT IS A’ PUNISHMENT’ FOR CONTINUING TO BE UNABLE TO FIND A JOB.

After this 6-week punishment exercise you are immediately placed onto four-week workfare. They don’t call it workfare but it is exactly as the current 6-month workfare scheme: 30 hours a week, mandatory working in a charity or local business.

This month of workfare is not part of the 6 month workfare so the long-term unemployed are exploited by an enforced period of 7 months of unpaid work.

So these immoral government/DWP policies are bad for the DWP employees as well as the self-respect of those who are at the lowest point of their lives (unemployed, poor and ostensively ‘slaves’).

So my advice to anyone who hasn’t reached the waterfall in this unemployment process is USE THE 2 year work help scheme to find a job because once this process is ended you are FAIR GAME for exploitation by the DWP. The new rules bully you into submission. The only way out is doing what I did and signing off – I lost my apartment and now I have no income at all.

The logical result of the unfair demonisation of the poorest section of our society. The new myth is that there are loads of jobs out there and the feckless unemployed don’t want to take them. This is the dystopian, 21st century Tory Britain has introduced. And the sad thing is that the other 2 main political parties concur with these policies.

The majority of the Tory/LibDem cabinet are either billionaires or millionaires who have never worked in a proper job in their lives and its these ruling elitist men who are happy to step on the poorest and most disadvantaged in society. After all, when things get tight the ruling ‘class’ always have to find a scapegoat to demonise and then punish. That is what this is all about, folks. This my earlier consideration of killing myself on the doorstep of these ruling elitists. Only those rich, heartless b******ds at the top of the poop pile deserve consideration.

Follow Blog via Email

Iain Duncan Smith Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Dear Secretary of State, We are deeply concerned by your decision to award the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) contract to private contractor Maximus, rather than bring the work back … Continue reading →

This week the Conservatives announced in their manifesto they would introduce a new ‘community’ workfare scheme, specifically targeted at young people. This is odd because chancellor George Osbourne had already launched just such a workfare scheme last year – and neither David Cameron, Osbourne, nor the media appear to remember it. What does this workfare re […]

Just a small fraction of some of todays tweets, pictures and videos from today’s National Day of Action vs Maximarse Thanks to everyone who took part, on the streets in 30 towns and cities, on twitter and in solidarity with us in far away Toronto See more here from Kate Belgrave, a storify by Paul… Continue Reading Don’t relax Maximus, we’ll be back……. #Scra […]

Last Night’s Benefits Crackdown by Channel Four’s Dispatches was essential viewing. It came as this report (signaled by Unemployed in Tyne and Wear) was published. 100,000 Children Affected By Benefit Sanctions In 2013/14 A new report from a coalition of major UK Churches has revealed that around 100,000 children were affected by benefit sanctions in 2013/14 […]

Today, Netpol supporters received our February 2015 newsletter in their email in-boxes. It is now also available online here. If you would like to receive future email updates, sign up to Netpol’s ‘announcements’ list here.

Today, March 2nd 2015, has been the day of action against Maximus Inc, led by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC). At this time, it is worth noting that recent copyright reforms means creators and artists are more free to parody … Continue reading →